Crisis of the Late Middle Ages
The '''Crisis of the Late Middle Ages' lasted from about 1337 AD until 1453 AD. It began on the eve of the Hundred Years’ War between the two leading European powers of the day, France and England. It then ended around 1453, both the year the Hundred Years' War ended, and the fall of the Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. It is also roughly when the moveable-type printing press was invented; the modern age was the age of the printing revolution. Around 1300, the prosperity and growth of the European High Middle Ages came to a halt. As the planet entered the cooler climate of the so-called Little Ice Age, local famines became more commonplace and there were more widespread agricultural crises, such as the Great Famine of 1315-17. The consequences of this famine, however, were not as severe as demographic catastrophe of the Black Death. One of the deadliest pandemics in human history reached Europe in 1347, and six years later had killed as much as a third of the population; at least 75 million people world-wide. The plague had profound social, cultural and religious impacts. As economies adjusted severe labour shortages, the bonds of feudalism slackened, and landowners tried to protect their profits, the result was peasant unrest, such the English Peasant's Revolt or French Jacquerie. Moreover, the upheavals left certain minority groups vulnerable, especially the Jews who were often scapegoated for the calamity. The Catholic clergy succumbed in vast numbers, contracting the plague while caring for the sick and dying. Although losses were eventually replaced, these hastily trained priests lacked the moral rigour of their predecessors, and with a lack of leadership due to Great Papal Schism of 1378, the 15th-century was characterised by a general decline in clerical discipline that would ultimately result in the Protestant Reformation. To add to these problems, dynastic struggles and wars effected many European states for much of the period. France and England experienced over a century of intermittent conflict; the Hundred Years’ War. At issue was continental lands still held by the English kings since the Norman conquest of 1066, and a French succession crisis that left English kings with a credible claim to the French crown. There were three phases separated by long truces. The English got the better of the first phase with victories at Crécy and Poitiers, followed by a remarkable French recovery in the second phrase. Then in 1407 France descended into a long bitter period of civic war, paving the way for Henry V's famous victory at Agincourt. It would be surprising if the English position had not proved fragile in the end, but remarkably the symbol of French resistance was a teenage illiterate peasant-girl; Joan of Arc. Her emergence changed the course of war in favour of the French, and the initiative was carried further by Louis XI of France. In the end, England was left with no possessions on the continent, except for the port-city of Calais. The most lasting legacy of this long conflict was probably the development of strong national identities in both kingdoms, and the arrival of artillery on European battlefields. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, the Muslim Ottoman Turks established their first toe-hold in Europe at Gallipoli in 1354. A century later, the Byzantine Empire was permanently extinguished with the fall of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By this stage, the entire Balkan peninsula had effectively been annexed, though mopping up would continue until 1479, despite the efforts of Hungary, Vlad the Impaler, and one of the last-major Crusades. More than the Byzantine Empire and 2,000 years of Roman civilisation came to an end in 1453. The world was changing, and the Middle Ages themselves had passed away. A new spirit of adventure infused Europe, already evident in the Renaissance, an efflorescence of culture whose influence was felt in everything from painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, philosophy, science, music, politics, religion, and many other areas of intellectual inquiry. Just two years after the fall of Constantinople in 1455, Johannes Gutenberg introduced the mechanical movable-type printing-press to Europe started the "Printing Revolution". 33-years after that in 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, opening the sea-route to the Orient, and 4-years later in 1492, a little known Italian called Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. The Age of Discovery had begun. History Background to the Conflict The term Hundred Years War (1337-1453) was defined centuries after the events, and is in many ways misleading. In fact, English and French were only sporadically at war, since sustained warfare was impossible to keep up; it was too expensive. Tension between the two crowns can be traced back centuries earlier, to the origins of the English royal family itself in the Norman conquest of England in 1066. And the conflict would continue long afterwards, at least until the loss of the last English foothold of Calais in 1558, or even until 1904 when the two nations finally signed an agreement that was to last; the Entente Cordial. Ever since in 1066, the descendants of William the Conqueror had been able to lay claim to lands on both sides of the English Channel. In their continental territories, the English kings still owed homage as vassals of the French crown, and the fact that they were kings in their own right in England didn't change that. For a time, under Henry II of England (d. 1189) and his immediate successors, the greater part of the France owed allegiance, not to the royal family crowned in Reims, but to the one crowned in Westminster. Yet the French crown gradually consolidated its authority over the whole geographical area of France, particularly during the reign of Philip II of France (d. 1223) who acted decisively to exploit the weaknesses of King John, both legally and militarily. By the reign of Louis IX of France (d. 1270), only the Duchy of Aquitaine in the south-west remained in English hands. In practical terms, Aquitaine had a great deal of independence, but a noble there might appeal against their lord to the royal court in Paris. Any medieval power struggle was not just one of warfare and political intrigue, but a complex game of dynastic marriages. The princes of great families married within the same limited circle, thus western European rulers became an interconnected web of cousins; sometimes with good claims to each others throne. One such marriage in 1308, between the daughter of Philip IV of France (d. 1314) and the son of Edward Longshanks of England (d. 1307) was meant to seal a lasting peace. Instead, it would also produce an eventual English claimant to the French throne itself, and the longest and bitterest conflict between the two most powerful kingdoms in Europe; France had a huge population of perhaps 18 million people, while England had about 3.5 million. Until the early 14th-century the Capetian Dynasty (987-1328) had been remarkably fortunate; since the reign of Hugh Capet (d. 996) there had always been a son to inherit the French crown for twelves generations. But their luck had finally run out. Between 1316 and '26, all three sons of Philip IV ascended to the French throne in turns, each leaving no male heir. With the direct line of the House of Capet rendered extinct, for the first time in over three centuries, there was a succession crisis in France. By proximity of blood, the nearest male relative was Edward III of England (1327-77), whose mother Isabella was the sister of the previous three French kings. The French nobility balked at the prospect; an English king still in his minority, under the regency of Isabella and Roger Mortimer who were widely suspected of having murdered the previous English king. An assembly of French nobles and bishops instead awarded the crown to the nearest heir through male ancestry, another nephew, Philip VI Valois (1328-1350 AD); the Valois Dynasty (1328-1589) would go on to rule France for two-and-a-half centuries. The English king seemed at first to accept the decision, distracted by his own internal struggle, but tensions between the French and English monarchies steadily grew. Edward III of England expected to be given a free hand in Scotland, but during the Second War of Scottish Independence (1332-57) the French king formally renewed the Auld Alliance, and offered the boy-king David II Bruce (d. 1371) refuge. By 1336, the two kings were enemies, although not yet openly at war. The final breach came when Edward offered refuge in England to a disgraced French noble called Robert of Artois, who had committed forgery to try to obtain an inheritance. When Edward refused to surrender him to French justice, Philip declared that Edward had forfeited the Duchy of Aquitaine for breaching his obligations as vassal. Rather than seeking a peaceful resolution, Edward responded by reviving his claim to the French crown as the grandson of Philip; effectively a clear declaration of war. Hundred Years' War (1337–1360) The opening hostilities of the Hundred Years' War were at sea, for control of the English Channel. At the time, neither England nor France had anything like a professional navy, instead relying on commandeered merchant vessels converted into warships. Both sides attempted to hire war-galleys from the Italian city-states, but were more successful disrupting the others efforts. After some preliminary attacks on the others commercial shipping and coast, the decisive confrontation came at the naval Battle of Sluys (June 1340) off Flanders. Medieval naval warfare war pretty simplistic; an exchange of arrows from the fore and aft castles as the ships closed in, then grapples were used to bring ships close, followed by boarding and a desperate bloody fight at close-quarters on the wooden decks. The larger French fleet took up a defensive formation, with their ships bound together, and this would be their downfall. While the English fleet spent some time manoeuvring to gain the advantage of wind and tide, the French ships drifted east with the current and became entangled with each other. The French were attempting to move back west and ill-prepared, when the English attack came. The English clearly got the better of the opening exchange, in an early example of the power of the longbow. The longbow derives its power from shooting heavier arrows, more accurately, at a faster rate. English archers had honed their skills in wars with Scotland, demonstrating their devastating effectiveness at the Battle of Falkirk (1298). As the battle progressed the French tactic of chaining the ships together continued to proved disastrous, allowing the English to attack ships with overwhelming numbers, while other enemy ships sat immobilised. At this little know battle, the French navy was almost completely destroyed or captured. England would dominated the Channel for the rest of the Hundred Years' War, with the result that the fighting took place on French soil, rather than English. The English were unable to followup on Sluys for six years, with Edward III plagued by money problems, with fierce opposition to taxation to fund overseas adventures. At this point, the war might have lost all momentum were it not for a succession crisis in Brittany in which Edward III and Philip VI backed different claimants; the War of the Breton Succession (1341-65). The war thus became a series of back-and-forth struggles on multiple fronts in Aquitaine, Brittany, and a revolt in ever-independent Flanders. In 1346, the English decided to open a new front, crossing the Channel with a force of 10,000 men, and invading Normandy. Edward embarked upon a Chevauchée, ''a fast moving plundering and pillaging campaign across the fertile countryside of Normandy, razing every town in their path including Caen. Philip was caught completely by surprise, but eventually mustered a far larger French army and set-out in pursuit. Edward marched north-east making for Flanders, but despite some daring river crossings, found himself unable to outmanoeuvre Philip with no choice but to give battle. At the '''Battle of Crécy' (August 1346), the English took-up a prepared defensive position on a hillside ideal for their archers. Again and again the French heavy cavalry thundered up the slope in the face of a barrage of English arrows, which caused heavy losses. By the time the charges reached the English men-at-arms, they had lost much of their impetus and were repulsed in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Crécy was a landmark moment in European military history, with the growing professionalism of the English army proving decisive; superior leadership, organisation, and cohesion between the knightly elites and common-born infantrymen and bowmen. This contrasted sharply with the indiscipline of the French, whose infantry were an ill-armed and ill-trained rabble, as likely to be ridden down by their own side as hot-blooded knights saw any delay in charging as an affront to their honour. English discipline and tactical skill would bring many more victories in the future, while the French seemed to learn little, despite losses totalling perhaps 10,000 including 1,200 knights and noblemen. These losses crippled the French army's ability to the English siege of the port-city of Calais, which capitulated after 11-month in August 1347; it would remained in English hands even after the Hundred Year' War until 1558. In desperation, Philip appealed to the Scottish king David II Bruce for help, but he was heavily defeated and captured at the Battle of Neville's Cross (October 1346). Edward returned home in triumph, and celebrated with a series of festivals and jousting-tournaments. He also inaugurated the Order of the Garter, to bolster the spirit of camaraderie between himself and his greatest nobles. Central to Edward's policy throughout the war were the pomp and ceremony, the use of anti-French propaganda to strengthen a sense of national unity, and appeals the chivalric honour of his nobles. In 1347, the Black Death arrived in Italy on ships from the east, decimating the population of Europe, and bringing all significant campaigning to a halt. When Philip VI died in 1350, he left France divided by war and plague; things would get no better under his son John II Valois (1350-64). After the plague had passed and England was able to recover financially, Edward III organised two large armies for a second major campaign, one in the north under his own command, and the other in Aquitaine under his son, Edward the Black Prince (d. 1376). Chevauchées in 1355 devastated many towns and villages especially in the south, seriously effecting French tax revenue, and sticking at the French king's reputation, who seemed incapable of defending his subjects. The same tactic was attempted the next year, this time intending for the two English armies to join up. But a series of delays and a failed attempt to cross the River Loire at Tours, left the Black Prince in a precarious situation. He began retreating south, but was outflanked by a larger French army near the town of Poitiers. Prince Edward seemed willing to negotiate terms, but John insisted on total surrender. At the Battle of Poitiers (September 1356), the English took-up a defensive position on a brief slope behind hawthorn hedges, between a river on one side and dense forest on the other, offering the French only one route of attack unsuitable for cavalry. The French strategy was sound; a coordinated attack all across the English lines predominantly with infantry, using their numerical superiority to overwhelm the enemy. But again, French indiscipline led to catastrophe. When the English removed their baggage train from the field, for unclear reasons, the French cavalry on the right flank assumed it was the start of a retreat and charged prematurely; the cavalry on the left flank eventually followed suit. Both cavalries were thus routed, before the infantry got anywhere near the English lines. The tide was turned when the English cavalry launched a wide flanking manoeuvre and crashed into the French rear. Fearful of encirclement, the cohesion of the French army disintegrated with many soldiers attempting to flee the field. The French king stubbornly fought-on, winning renown for his personal courage, but was eventually surrounded and forced to surrender. The defeat at Poitiers sent France into crisis. The realm was left in the hands of the Dauphin, the future Charles V (1364-80), who faced rebellions across the kingdom. King John II was meanwhile taken to England as a prisoner. In 1359, Edward III launched a third major campaign intent on taking the cathedral city of Reims, where kings of France had for centuries received their coronations. Unable to capture Reims nor Paris, he moved on to the town of Chartres. At Chartres, disaster struck when a freak hail storm struck, and devastated Edward's army, killing about 1,000 soldiers and 6,000 horses. This prompted him to opened negotiations with the Dauphin, eventually agreeing the Treaty of Brétigny (1360). The first phase of the war ended on very favourable terms for the English. Edward renounced his claim to the French throne, but gained full sovereign rights over an expanded Aquitaine and Calais, as well as a huge ransom for King John II. France meanwhile lay devastated, territorially dismembered once again, and economically crippled for a generation by John's ransom. But there would be many more twists and turns in the Hundred Years' War. Black Death (1346–1353) In the 14th century, a tremendous period of population, urbanisation, and economic growth in Europe came to a dramatic halt. As the planet entered the cooler climate of the so-called Little Ice Age, agricultural crises became more commonplace. Local famines could rarely be offset by imports, and occasionally there were more widespread crises, most notably the Great Famine of 1315-17. Crop failures across Europe started with unusually heavy rain in spring 1315, and lasted through 1316 until the summer harvest in 1317; Europe did not fully recover until 1322. Yet the demographic consequences of this famine were nothing compared to the plague that struck Europe later in the century; the Black Death (1346-53). In the 1330s an unusually virulent strain of plague inflicted Central Asia and China. It seems to have had elements both of bubonic plague carried by fleas, particularly those which live on black rats, and of the pneumonic variety, in which the plague spreads on the breath of infected victims. The lethal infection may have killed 25 million Chinese and other Asians of the Mongol Empire before making its way westwards to the Genoese trading colony of Kaffa in the Crimea in 1347; at the time, the Silk Road was easier to travel than ever before, with the Mongols policing the whole route in an enforced Pax Mongolica. ''From there, Genoese merchants brought it home to Europe, most likely carried by fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships. Sicily was the first part of Europe to be infected in October 1347. The trading ports around the Mediterranean of the Italian Maritime Republics saw the symptoms in January 1348. The disease spread northwest across Europe, striking France, Spain, Portugal and England by June 1348, striking Germany, Scotland and Scandinavia from 1348 to 1350, and finally striking Russia in 1351. The results everywhere were devastating. The contemporary Florentine historian Matteo Villani (d. 1363) wrote, "''it was a plague that touched people of every condition, age and sex. They began to spit blood and then they died; some immediately some in two or three days, and some in a longer time. Most had swellings in the groin, and many had them in the left and right armpits and in other places; one could almost always find an unusual swelling somewhere on the victim's body." As much as a third of Europe's population died; the same is true for the Islamic world. The cities and towns were hardest hit. At least 60% of the population of Florence, Hamburg and Bremen perished. Half the population of Paris and London died. The plague repeatedly returned to haunt Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the 14th to 17th centuries, though never as virulently as this first outbreak. Europe's last major outbreak occurred in Marseille in 1720. It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its pre-plague level. The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, killing over 75 million people by 1350. The plague's profound religious, social, and cultural impact has been compared to that of the similar epidemics, such as the Justinian Plague that was prevalent in the Byzantine Empire from the 6th-century, the Antonine Plague of the Roman Empire from the 2nd-century, the combination of diseases that killed perhaps 90% of the native population of the Americas after the arrival of Christopher Columbus, or the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the 1980s. With Europe's population succumbing in vast numbers and healers at a loss to explain the cause, religious fanaticism and paranoia swept the continent in the wake of the plague. The wells, it was said, had been deliberately poisoned by the Jews. The first massacre of a Jews occured in Toulon in France in April 1348. In town after town Jewish communities were annihilated, with notable massacres in Erfurt, Basel, Strasbourg, Mainz and Cologne. Fleeing this new horror, Europe's Jews made their way east, mainly to Poland where King Casimir III (d. 1370) enthusiastically gave them refuge and protection; he is said to have been influenced by his Jewish mistress. Various other groups were singled out, such as as beggars, Romani gypsies, people with skin diseases as mild as acne, and women accused of witchcraft. The Black Death hit the Christian Church particularly hard, since the clergy contracted the disease while caring for the sick and dying. There were severe shortage of priest in the aftermath. The losses were eventually replaced by hastily trained and inexperienced clergymen, who often lacked the rigour of their predecessors. Along with events such as the Great Papal Schism of 1378. this played a part in the general decline in clerical discipline evident in the 15th-century, that would eventually result in the Protestant Reformation. Of the more positive effects, despite the dramatic fall in population, the European economy did not collapse; the productivity and commercial activity of the 13th was largely maintained. Those peasants who survived the plague found their situation to be much improved. Land was relatively plentiful, wages high, and the more odious obligations of serfdom all but disappeared. Urban workers found opportunities in professions that had previously been closed to them by guilds. It was possible to move to new localities in response to wage offers, and rise higher in life. Royal authorities in Western Europe instituted restrictions on both wage increases and the relocation of workers; such laws were the cause of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 in England. Although the Black Death highlighted the shortcomings of medical science in the Middle Ages, it also led to positive changes in the field of medicine. Another incidental effect was a dramatic increase in building with brick and slate roofs, rather than traditional wood and thatch where rats liked to live. Hundred Years' War (1369–89) The terms of the Treaty of Brétigny were never acted upon. King John II died while still a prisoner in London in 1364, and the French refused to pay the rest of the ransom. His son Charles V Valois (1364-1380 AD) inherited a kingdom in a state of disaffection and lawlessness; a peasant revolt in the north known as the Jacquerie; hostility from the nobility led by Charles of Navarre; the opposition of the Paris bourgeoisie; and the Tard-Venus, soldiers lately employed in the war that turned to banditry and pillaging. Nevertheless his reign marked a miraculous revival of French fortunes. The new king was highly intelligent, but suffered from serious ill health, possibly the side-effects of an attempted poisoning in 1359. He nevertheless devoted intense energy to ruling; as one historian wrote, "Not surprisingly, the king lived under a sense of urgency." Charles' skillful management of the kingdom allowed him to overcome his domestic challenges, restored stability to the realm, and replenished the royal treasury. He surrounded himself with a talented group of advisers, notably a minor noble from Brittany named Bertrand du Guesclin; a veteran of that provinces bitter civil war and expert in guerrilla warfare. Central to his statecraft was restoring the prestige of the royal family, by emphasising the divine nature of kingship. It began with his own coronation at Reims, where with great pomp and ceremony he was anointed with same sacred oil as St. Louis and Charlemagne; oil that had supposedly been brought from heaven by the Holy Spirit for the baptism of King Clovis in 496 AD. This elaborate ceremony later proved crucial for his grandson Charles VII in uniting France at the darkest moment in the Hundred Years' War. Charles V's reign was of course dominated by hostilities with England, but he eschewed a direct confrontation, at least in his early reign. Instead there were series of proxy-wars. Charles managed to negotiate the marriage of his second son to Margaret of Flanders, the most eligible heiresses in France, thus foiling an English plan to expand their influence on the continent. In Brittany, the English backed claimant had prevailed in the civil war, but the local nobles pressured him to pay homage to Charles of France rather than Edward of England; henceforth, the Bretons sought to maintain their independence, whenever the French or English became too assertive in their lands. Another region where England and France sought to gain influence was Castile in Spain, supporting rival claimants in a succession crisis; Peter the Cruel and his younger half-brother Henry. Du Guesclin led the French forces, and was able to drive Peter out of Castile by 1365. Then Peter was restored following an English victory at the Battle of Nájera (April 1367). But it proved a pyrrhic victory; the Black Prince was forced to withdraw, suffering from the protracted illness that would eventually kill him, and the English army suffered badly from du Guesclin's guerilla tactics on the retreat. In 1369, Peter overthrew once again by du Guescli, and this time was murdered. For the English, the campaign had achieved nothing at great cost. Deep in debt, the Black Prince resolved to recover his losses by heavily taxing his subjects in Aquitaine, which prompted some local nobles appealed to the King of France as their feudal overlord. According to the Treaty of Brétigny, Charles V had lost his authority over Aquitaine, but in 1369 he summoned the Black Prince to Paris to answer the complaints anyway, using some dubious legal pretext. When Edward refused, the second phase of the Hundred Years' War began. This time conditions favoured the French; Edward III was too old to campaign, and the Black Prince too sick. Where his grandfather and father had plunged into battle, Charles V opted for a strategy of attrition, with numerous small-scale offensives on multiple fronts. With the Black Prince having withdrawn to England, the defence of Aquitaine was led by his younger brother John of Gaunt (d. 1399). John was married to the daughter of Peter the Cruel, the recently deposed king of Castile, which brought them firmly into an alliance with France. The Franco-Spanish navy virtually destroyed the English fleet at the Battle of La Rochelle (1372 AD), opening yet another front in the war of attrition, with destructive raids against the coasts of Aquitaine. The English position meanwhile continued to deteriorate; Edward the Black Prince dying in June 1376, and Edward III himself 12-months later, bringing a ten-year-old child, Richard II Plantagenet (1377-99), to the English throne. By the time peace was agreed in the Truce of Leulinghem (1389 AD), the English continental lands had been reduced to small territories around the ports of Bordeaux, Brest, and Calais. With both sides now war-weary and raked by internal strife, the peace would hold for several decades. Towards the end of Charles V's reign, a new front was opened in the proxy-war between England and France, this time centred on the Catholic Church; the Great Papal Schism (1378-1417 AD). Since 1309, a line of seven Popes had resided not in Rome, but in the French enclave of Avignon, under strong influence from the French crown. But this situation could not last indefinitely: the prestige the Pope derived from the Holy See of St Peter in Rome; and their secular territorial base was the Papal States. In 1377, Pope Gregory XI (1370-78) decided to return the papal curia to Rome. After almost seventy years on French soil, the papal court was French in its methods and to a large extent in its staff, and back in Rome some tension between French and Italian factions was only to be expected. Things came to an abrupt head when Gregory died within a year of his return. The people of Rome were worried that another French Pope would be elected, and they rioted in the streets. So the fearful cardinals decided to elect an Italian from Naples, Pope Urban VI (1778-89). Unfortunately, Urban quickly proved a divisive figure, and became known for his intransigence and violent outbursts. Unhappy with the new Pope, several of the cardinals predominantly from France reconvened, declared the previous election invalid, and elected a new Pope, Clement VII (1378-87), a Frenchman who reigned from Avignon. Yet Urban refused to step down, so now there were two Popes at the same time, and this situation would continue for four decades. All the states in Christendom became allied with one Pope or the other, rooted in every geopolitical conflict in Europe: France obviously aligned with Avignon, so England supported the Pope in Rome; Portugal aligned against Castile in the struggle to retain her independence; Scotland aligned against England; ever-independent Flanders aligned against France; and the north Italian city-states aligned against imperial Germany. By 1409, all sides agreed that the conflict was undermining the esteem of the Papacy. At an ecumenical council convened at Pisa, both existing Popes were declared invalid, and a new Pope was elected. The only problem was that the other two Popes refused to resign; so now there were three Popes. Finally in 1417, the schism was brought to an end at another ecumenical council, where all of Europe's cardinals elected Pope Martin V (1417-1431 AD), and excommunicated the existing Popes who refused to resign; Martin would reside in Rome. The Great Papal Schism seriously damaged the authority of the Papacy. For several years, a new reform movement within the Church held that an ecumenical council was superior to the Pope, in a struggle reminiscent to that in England between the kings and parliament. In the meantime, the Popes struggled in vain to arrest the marked decline in moral discipline within the Church, that would ultimately resulted in the Protestant Reformation. Build-up to the Final Phase (1377-1415) By the time Edward III of England died in 1377, the townsmen and peasants of the England were sick of the war, and the high taxes needed to sustain it. The reign of his young grandson Richard II Plantagenet (1377-99) was fraught with economic, social, and political crises. The unruly mood of the kingdom was almost immediately expressed in the Peasants' Revolt (1381). In the wake of the Black Death, England began to adjust to the changed economic situation where manpower was in short supply: wages were driven sharply upwards, eroding the profits of landowners. The royal government, under young Richard II and his uncle John of Gaunt (d. 1399), responded with a range of drastic measures to control the economy, that attempted to fix wages at pre-plague levels, to impose fines on those who refused to work for low wages, and to make it a crime to break a contract and move elsewhere for higher wages. But the system was unenforceable, applied in arbitrary fashion, and deeply unpopular. Moreover, never before had the royal authorities allied itself with the local landowners in quite such a blatant manner. To this indignity was added a new form of taxation, a poll tax of one shilling levied on every person over the age of 14. Designed to spread the cost of the war over a broader economic base, widespread evasion proved to be a serious problem, and increasingly draconian methods of collection. Civil disorder such as attacks on tax collectors flared-up in many parts of the country during the spring of 1381. The revolt started in Essex and Kent, where rebels from both regions rapidly grew in numbers under the leadership of at Wat Tyler (d. 1381); "Tyler" suggests his occupation was a roof tiler. As the uprisings spread, the Kentish rebels advanced on London, which because of the war in France was relatively undefended. While king Richard, who was still only fourteen years old, sheltered within the Tower of London with his councilors, several building were looted and burned including the Savoy Palace. Without the forces to disperse the rebels, Richard tried to negotiated with the rebels, but that same day, a small group of them assaulted the Tower of London, murdering two members of the Privy Council held responsible for the poll tax. The young king agreed to a number of concessions including the repeal of the poll tax and a general amnesty, which dispersed many of the rebels. He then showed considerable courage in personally meeting with Wat Tyler at Smithfield on 15 June. Exactly what happened at the meeting is unclear, but some sort of altercation broke with a servant of the king, and Tyler was pulled from his horse and killed. The situation was now precarious, but the king acted with calm resolve, persuading the remain rebels to disperse with continued to promises of clemency. The rebels should never have trusted him of course. Uprisings in other parts of the country were easily put down, and once the danger had past, Richard revoked the amnesty that he had granted, and personally hunted-down and hanged every rebel he could find; some 1,500 in all. Years later when Richard had need of popular support, he would find he had none. No more was heard of the king's other concessions, but then no more was heard of a poll tax in English either until 1989. It is difficult not to conclude that Richard II's triumph over the Peasants’ Revolt gave him lofty ideas of his own power. A firm believer in royal prerogative, the young king cultivated a refined atmosphere at court, in which the king was an elevated figure, with art and culture at its centre; Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1343), the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, served in various official roles. Yet his high-handed behaviour led to a series of political crises. On coming of age in 1383, Richard wrestled control away from the Privy Council which had overseen his minority, by replacing them with a group of favourites, mostly young upstarts like Robert de Vere (d. 1392). But Richard's choice of companions were not the kind of men the great barons approved of. And above all, he abandoned the war with France. Richard found himself opposed by a group known to history as the Lords Appellant; appealing to have his favourites removed. The first crisis of his reign came in 1386 when the king needed to raise new taxes to balance the royal financed. When parliament refused, Richard declared this treasonable and retreated to the Midlands to rally his supporters. He dispatched his friend Robert de Vere to London with an armed force, but was defeated at the Battle of Radcot Bridge (December 1387). A few days later Richard returned to his capital humiliated, where parliament purged the Privy Council of his minister, and established a new council led by his uncle John of Gaunt, which effectively took over the government. By 1389, Richard had gradually re-established royal authority and governed in relative harmony with his former opponents for the next eight years. But if the Lords Appellant thought they had Richard under control, they were dead wrong. In 1397, the king took his revenge, ordering the arrest of the five senior members on charges of treason; two were executed, and three exiled for ten years, including Henry Bolingbroke (d. 1413), the son of his uncle John of Gaunt and heir to the Duchy of Lancaster. Bolingbroke departed peacefully to Paris, but the following year Richard went further. On the death of John of Gaunt, he confiscated Bolingbroke's vast Lancastrian inheritance, and declared his banishment for life. Finally feeling secure, the king left the country to campaign in Ireland. But Richard had gone too far: the right to property and inheritance was the very basis of law and order in England. With nothing to lose, Henry Bolingbroke returned from exile, landing in Yorkshire in June 1399. Then he began a triumphant march across England, rallying both noble and popular support. By the time Richard made it back from Ireland, his support had melted away, and he surrendered to Henry at Conwy in Wales without even giving battle. The following day at a special sitting of parliament, Richard was deposed, and Bolingbroke formally claimed his cousins throne as Henry IV; Richard died in prison four months later, probably from starvation and neglect. Henry IV Lancaster (1399-1413) ascended to the English throne with broad acclaim. He was a very capable leader in battle, a tournament champion, had undertaken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and had a reputation for affability and statesmanship. But he was undeniably a usurper, who had dispatched the rightful king. He wasn't even the next in line to the throne; the presumptive heir was Edmund Mortimer (d. 1425), a seven-year-old grandson of Henry III Plantagenet via his second son, while Henry IV descended from the third son. This question of legitimacy would later be revisited in the War of the Roses of the late-15th-century. Much of Henry's own reign was taken-up with plots, rebellions and assassination attempts. Most of these troubles were quashed with relative ease, but his regime became more repressive with each uprising; Henry had to rule through fear, but the most frightened person in England was himself. Into this turbulent period stepped the last great figure of Welsh nationhood; Owain Glyndwr (d. 1415). The Welsh lords had generally supported the deposed Richard II, and serious civil disorder broke out across Wales in early 1400. Glyndwr was an unlikely figure to emerge as the rebellion's leader; he is said to have fought alongside Henry IV at the Battle of Radcot Bridge (December 1387). His own resentment was sparked by a local land dispute with a personal friend of Henry IV, that spiralled out of control. Under Glyndwr's leadership the revolt grew in strength and in September 1400 his supporters acclaim him Prince of Wales; a title that had been vacant for some years, since Richard II had no son. The rebellion gathered further momentum through two events in 1402. Firstly, parliament issued a set of anti-Welsh Penal Laws, which only pushed even more Welshmen into rebellion. And secondly, Glyndwr defeated an English force led by Edmund Mortimer the Elder (d. 1409), who was captured. A great English noble with estates on the Welsh borders as well as in Northumberland, Mortimer's nephew could be said to have had a better claim to the English throne than Henry himself. Mortimer was persuaded to join the Welsh cause, opening a new front in the rebellion in northern England. Despite a setback when Mortimer's glamorous young nephew Henry "Hotspur" Percy was slain at the Battle of Shrewsbury (July 1403), by 1404 Glyndwr had captured the important English stronghold of Harlech, which became for a few years the seat of a Welsh government under a Welsh leader, with its own parliament and adminiatration, receiving envoys from France, Scotland, Spain, and the Papacy. But this proved the high water mark for Welsh independence. The inevitable English response was led by another man proclaimed Prince of Wales; Prince Henry, the son of Henry IV and future Henry V. The younger Henry gradually began to retake Wales while cutting off trade and the supply of weapons. In 1407 Aberystwyth Castle surrendered, while in 1409 it was the turn of Harlech Castle. By 1410 Glyndwr was reduced to the status of an outlaw. He is believed to have died somewhere in hiding around 1415. The dream of independence had crumbled, and in the aftermath, the Welsh were punished by the English, with anti-Welsh Penal Laws remaining in place until one last ironic twist; a reverse takeover of the English throne by a Welsh nobleman, Henry VII Tudor. By the time Henry IV died and was succeeded by his son Henry V Lancaster (1413-22), the kingdom was calm, and ready to exploit France's own internal turmoil. The hard-won victories of Charles V Valois proved short-lived. Having always suffered from serious ill-health, he died at just 42-years-old, and was succeeded by his eleven years old son, Charles VI Valois (1380-1422); also known as Charles the Mad. During his minority, the regency was entrusted to his four uncles, whose self-serving and frequently divergent policies squandered the financial resources of the kingdom, painstakingly built up by Charles V. Philip of Burgundy (d. 1404) took the dominant role during the regency, increasing taxes to support the suppression of an uprising in Flanders, where Philip's father-in-law happened to be duke; a few years later, Philip himself inherited the duchy through his wife. In 1388, Charles VI took up personal rule, dismissing his uncles and reinstating his father's highly-competent advisers. The political and economic conditions of the kingdom improved significantly. However in 1392, Charles suffered from his first bouts of insanity, in which he killed four knights before lapsing into a coma. These lapses into violent paranoid delusions recurred throughout his life, such as believing that he was made of glass, or denying that he had a wife and children. Political power again fell into the hands hands of his uncles, whose rivalries and disputes only intensified with the death of Philip of Burgundy in 1404. A fierce struggle for power developed between the king's brother, Louis of Orléans (d. 1407), and Philip's son, John "the Fearless" of Burgundy (d. 1419). Their personal conflict came to a head in 1407, when Louis was brutally assassinated in the streets of Paris. No one doubted the order had come from the John the Fearless, and the conflict soon degenerated into the bitter and protracted Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War (1407-35), between John's supporters (the Burgundians), and opponents led by Bernard of Armagnac (d. 1418). This crisis would paralyse France for decades, a situation further complicated by a third warlike power on the scene, England. Hundred Years' War (1415–53) In 1415, the new English king, Henry V Lancaster (1413-22), decided to take advantage of the turmoil in France. He crossed the Channel with an army of 12,000, landing in the Seine estuary where he captured the port-city of Harfleur, after a longer than expected siege. Despite the unexpected delay and many casualties from an outbreak of dysentery, Henry balked at retiring directly to England for the winter, with his costly expedition having captured of only one fortress. Instead he embark upon a Chevauchée across Normandy towards English held Calais. During the siege, the French managed to negotiate a truce between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions, in the face of the greater threat from the English invasion. Reminiscent of the campaign ending at Crécy, despite some daring river crossings, Henry found himself unable to outmanoeuvre a large French army near the town of Agincourt, some 25 miles south of Calais. The Battle of Agincourt (October 1415) is one of the most famous battles in English history. The English took-up their favoured defensive formation in a narrow valley hemmed by dense woodland, with bowmen on each wing and infantry in the centre, all provided with stakes to plant in the ground as an instant palisade. At first it seemed the French had learned their lesson from previous battles; they refused to give battle, content to block Henry's way to the safety of Calais, and starve them into submission. Already low on supplies, Henry needed to provoke a battle. He ordered his whole army to advance to within longbow-range, and advanced a storm of arrows. With King Charles VI mentally incapacitated at the time, the French lacked coherent leadership, panicked, and attacked. The night before the battle had seen very heavy rain and the battlefield resembled a boggy ploughed field, unsuitable for cavalry charges. The French cavalry could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their stakes, but charged only after the initial volley of arrows from the English. The French cavalry were turned back again and again, and when the infantry finally reached the English lines over the muddy field, they were exhausted and hacked down. Agincourt was the third great English victory of the Hundred Years War, and an overwhelming disaster for the French. Some 6000 Frenchmen died in three hours of fighting, including the flower of the French nobility; three dukes, at least eight counts, and an archbishop. Henry V and his army reached Calais four days later, and sailed back to England in triumph. After raising further funds for the war, Henry V returned to France in 1417, and began to systematically conquer most of Normandy, except for Rouen. The capital city of the duchy was finally starved into submission in January 1419, after a six month siege, and Henry made a triumphal entry into the city of his Norman ancestors. The disaster of Agincourt only exacerbated the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War, with both sides blaming the other. Every level of French society chose sides, and the royal family did too. Queen Isabeau brought her incapacitated husband into the Burgundian camp, while her son the Dauphin, the future Charles VII'' ''(d. 1461), was literally married to the Armagnac faction. After a bitter struggle for control of Paris, the capital finally fell to the Burgundians in June 1418, and the Dauphin had to flee amid the slaughter, in which Bernard of Armagnac was slain. From this position of strength, John the Fearless of Burgundy decided to met with the Dauphin to negotiate an advantageous peace. However, having set the precedent for assassinations a decade before, in September 1419 John himself was murdered at the meeting on the bridge at Montereau-Fault-Yonne. Rather than break the Burgundian faction as the Dauphin had hoped, the murder ended any hope of settling the civil war for the foreseeable future; both factions were committed to the others destruction, even if it meant an alliance with the English enemy. In May 1420, Henry V signed the Treaty of Troyes with the Burgundian faction, who between them controlled most of northern France including Paris. The treaty was extraordinarily advantageous to the English cause; Henry V was acknowledged as heir after marrying Catherine, the daughter of Charles VI. Within a year, they had a son. Within two years, both Henry V and Charles VI were dead. And for the second time in the Hundred Years' War, a king of England had a legitimate claim to the French crown; the infant Henry VI Lancaster (1422-1461). It is hardly surprising that the prospect of an English king on the French throne would provoke passionate French patriotism. But no one could have foreseen that the symbol of French resistance would be a young illiterate virginal peasant-girl; Joan of Arc '''(d. 1431). Joan had for some years been hearing voices, that she believed were the Archangel Michael and various other saints. At the age of 16 in 1428, she was given a very specific mission: she must raise the ongoing English siege of Orléans, and bring the Dauphin to the cathedral-city of Reims for his coronations, where for centuries kings of France had been crowned. Through sheers persistence, Joan persuaded the local garrison commander to escort her almost 200 miles to the Dauphin's court at Chinon. Joan's entrance into court in February 1429 caused a sensation. Her reputation as a woman possessed preceded her, for the Dauphin conceals himself among his courtiers as a test. Joan immediately identified him, and told him of her mission. The political merits of her plan were obvious. Neither king was had yet been formally crowned king of France; Reims was 150 miles within English-Burgundian held territory, while his rival, seven-year-old Henry VI, was too young to be crowned for eight years. With the death of Henry V of England, the conflict had become a leaderless stalemate, but to be crowned at Reims would make Charles the rightful king anointed by God. So Joan was provided her with a horse, a suit of armour, a banner, and allowed to join a group of reinforcements already en-route for Orléans. Joan and her soldiers reached Orléans in late April 1429, which had been besieged by the English for six months, attempting to starve-out the garrison into submission. Armed and dressed like a man, fighting at least as bravely as a man, her charisma breathed new confidence into the French forces. One by one the English positions fell, and after ten days the French had done the impossible; broken the siege. By early June, the English were in full retreat the Loire Valley, who were pursued, forced to stand-and-fight, and utterly routed at the Battle of Patay (June 1429); although credited to Joan, she was with the rearguard, and most of the fighting was over by the time she reached the battlefield. Joan of Arc never personally fought, instead using her banner and bravery to inspire her men; she was wounded several times. Moreover, her advice concerning military strategy was usually accepted. And each victory gave credence to her message; that god was on the side of the French. She was now ready for the second part of her mission; to bring Charles VII at Reims. The attitude of the fortresses and towns on the route was uncertain, but Joan's magic continued to work. As the coronation rode across English-Burgundian held northern France, town after opened their gates without resistance. In July 1429, the Dauphin and Joan entered Reim in triumph, and the next day he was crowned '''King Charles VII Valois of France (1422-61). For the next ten months, Joan continued to campaign, usually with considerable success. Joan's misfortunes began in May 1430. In a skirmish against the Burgundians at Compiègne, she fall from her horse and was captured. She was later sold to the English, who want her to expose her as a fraud and a heretic. Joan toyed with recanting in order to save her own life, but in the end refused. On 30 May 1431, 19-year-old Joan of Arc was led out to Place du Vieux Marché in Rouen, tied to a stake, and burned to death. Few stories in history can match Joan of Arc's as an example of the immense power of inspiration. In 1456, the Pope annulled all charges against her, declaring her a martyr. In 1920, she was canonised as a saint. And today, she remains an icon of French nationalism. Even the death of Joan of Arc did nothing stem the new surge of French success. In 1435, the Duke Philip of Burgundy (d. 1467) acknowledged the trend, when he made peace with Charles VII, bringing an end to the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War and to the alliance with England. In 1437 the king returned his court to Paris, now once again the capital. A new phase then opened up in Charles’s life. The period of his reign characterised by indecision, ingratitude, and poverty came to an end, and at the age of 34, he began to show a new maturity. Normandy and Aquitaine remained in English hands, but realising the limitations of the resources available to him, he secured a five-year truce with the English in 1444. Charles used the time astutely, implementing sweeping reforms to strengthen the French state. Some taxes were accepted as a permanent levy, that had previously been special payments granted by the French parliament (Estates General) to meet a particular crisis in the royal finances; the king thus gained financial independence. On the ecclesiastical front, the king secured himself against Papal interference in French politics by promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), asserting the independence of the French Church. On the economic front, the merchant and royal adviser Jacques Coeur (d. 1456) did much to reform the currency and expand French commerce in the Mediterranean, that brought some prosperity to his subjects. In military matters, Charles took two important initiatives. He replaced feudal levies with France's first permanent standing army, with a more disciplined and professional approach to warfare than its predecessors; considered the first regular standing army in Western Europe since Roman times. And he invested heavily in the new weapon that was only now beginning to come into its own on the battlefield; artillery. The precise history of gunpowder is very hard to recover, but can be outlined with some confidence. The appropriate mixture of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur for gunpowder was probably discovered by Chinese alchemists while searching for the "elixir of eternal life", perhaps as early as the 3rd-century AD. In was not until the 11th-century that the Song Dynasty began to apply the black powder to warfare, with weapons such as fire-arrows and bombs lobbed at the enemy from catapults. But the real destructive force of gunpowder only emerged with the development of artillery; the use of a confined gunpowder explosion to propel a missile. Again it was probably first inventing by the Chinese in the 12th-century, and then rapidly traversed the vast Mongol Empire in the 13th-century. According to sources, Mamluk Egypt used cannons against the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut (1260). A few years later, the first cannons in Europe were seen in Spain, during the wars between Christians and Muslims. The problem confronting early makers of artillery was how to construct a tube strong enough to contain an explosion. European craftsmanship and metallurgy made great strides in the 15th-century, producing weapons better than any available elsewhere in the world; the Chinese had known about gunpowder centuries before Europe, but their artillery remained inferior right down to the 19th-century. Throughout the Hundred Years' War, both French and English armies were equipped with primitive cannons known as bombards, but the laborious moving, loading and firing limited their effectiveness until the last phase of the war. As master artillery commander in the armies of Charles VII, Jean Bureau (d. 1463) is credited with making French artillery the most effective in the world. The Hundred Years' War was a time of rapid military evolution. Weapons, tactics, army structure and the social meaning of war all changed. Although the heavy cavalry was still considered the most powerful unit in an army, several tactics developed to mitigate its effective use on the battlefield. The feudal system was slowly disintegrating throughout the war. Many rulers were by 1500 well on the way to exercising a monopoly of the use of artillery. With their appearance, great men could no longer brave the challenges of their rulers from behind the walls of their castles. Over a decade of relative peace between England and France, it was the English who made a clear breach of the truce, due to a minor quarrel with its former ally Brittany; the town of Fougeres just over the Brittany-Normandy border was captured and sacked in an attempt to force Brittany to release an imprisoned pro-English noble. Charles VII had been waiting for just such an excuse to invade English Normandy. With financial difficulties and a lack of strong leadership, the English position collapsed rapidly; reinforcements slow to arrive and many locals switching sides to the French. The regional capital of Rouen fell in October and the port-city of Harfleur in December. A respectable English finally crossed the Channel in March, with the two sides clashing at the Battle of Formigny (April 1450). The first few hours of the battle were inconclusive, despite the deployment of two small French cannons. In the afternoon, the English cavalry decided to attack and capture the cannons. At this point, the French cavalry suddenly arrived from a wide flanking manoeuvre to the south, charging the English rear and routing them. With no other significant forces in the duchy, the whole of Normandy was in French hands by August. The campaign in English Aquitaine faced more serious resistance, since the duchy had been under Plantagenet rule for 300 years, and most citizens had no wish to change. The regional capital of Bordeaux fell to the French in June 1451, only to be lost again when English reinforcements arrived in October 1452. The French counter-attack in the spring culminated in the Battle of Castillon (July 1453). Castillon is commonly considered the first time artillery played a decisive role on a European battlefield. The French retreated into order draw the English into a carefully position, ready for the French cannon to open fire obliterating the advancing soldiers. The battle lasted just over an hour, when the Breton cavalry suddenly arrived to turn the battle into an English rout. Castillon was the last major battle of the Hundred Years War, which itself was the last great medieval conflict. The centuries of the feudal knight were clearly on the wane, and century of the longbowman was already giving way to that of the artillery gunner. The Hundred Years' War was formally brought to an end by the Treaty of Picquigny (1475), which left England with no possessions on the continent except for the port-city of Calais. This treaty had been intended as merely a seven-year truce, but no more was heard of the long dispute. other than the curious custom of English kings including "King of France" among their titles until 1803. For all the sacrifice and suffering almost no territory had changed hands in the French victory other than the Duchy of Aquitaine. Historians have long considered the Hundred Years’ War a milestone in the emergence of the clearly defined nation states of England and France. For the English, after their many successes and frustrations, they became almost an island-nation once more, finally cured of their taste for continental intervention, and able to turn their energies to the problems of internal development. Fears that English commerce would suffer proved largely groundless; by retaining Calais the manufacturing towns of Flanders were kept open to English wool exports for another century. The political and financial troubles, as well as popular rage, which emerged from the defeat were a major cause of the War of the Roses. A proud patriotism, nourished by the euphoria of such dramatic English victories as Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt, was probably the most lasting legacy. It led to the rejection of all things French, including the French language, which had served as the language of the nobility ever since the Norman conquests. Francophobia runs as a recurrent thread through he English story from the 15th-century down to the start of the 20th, when finally the Germans replaced the French as England’s natural adversaries in the popular imagination. For the French, despite the devastation on its soil, the Hundred Years' War accelerated the process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a centralised state, now undisturbed by the obscure claims of England’s kings. Charles' victory had not just been over the English, but over the unruly French nobles. After 1453, only Burgundy, Flanders and Brittany retained some nominal autonomy, at least for now. Taxes were increasingly accepted by decree of the king's council, without the restraints that Magna Carta and parliament placed on English kings. One result was that the Estates General met less frequently, and France was well on the way to the absolutist monarchy that would characterise later centuries. French national mythology benefited too; its greatest acquisition was the story of Joan of Arc. The war in the long run saw the emergence of two powerful and mutually-antagonistic nations states. We can begin to glimpse what would be the dominant theme of European history for the next five-hundred years; the Balance of Power. England and France were already great powers, but others would later join and sometime decline and leave. This perpetual economic and intellectual rivalry, ceaseless arms-race, and soon competitive acquisition of colonial territories would spur Western civilisation to the unchallenged dominance of the world that it would eventually enjoy from the 19th century. Ottomans and Fall of Constantinople (1453) After the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1202, a new Latin controlled Crusader State had been created on the bones of the Byzantine one. Though its capital had been conquered, Byzantium survived in exile, at the cities of Nicaea and Epirus. It watched as the Latin knights slowly trickled away to the West, and their Muslim enemies fell to squabbling after the Mongol conquest of the Middle East. In 1261, Emperor Michael VIII (d. 1282) felt secure enough to test the strength of the former capital. When a scouting force of less than a thousand men reach the outskirts of Constantinople, they found the entire Latin garrison and Venetian fleet were absent conducting a raid. They entered the city at night via a little known gate, flung the few guards from the walls, and opened up the gates. As the news spread across the city, the last Latin emperor panicked, fled on a Venetian ship, and the city was lost for good. A few days later, Emperor Michael entered in triumph, was recrowned in the Hagia Sophia, and vowed to restore the empire. He would do what he could but it was much too late, and the final two centuries of the Byzantine Empire make for a depressing story. The heart had gone out of Constantinople, and, with the Black Death, the city that once dripped in gold as the largest in Europe, shrank to less than 100,000. Weak and isolated, the Empire was failing just when a hostile new power was rising; the Ottoman Turks. Throughout the 12th and 13th century, Anatolia was in turmoil. The Seljuk Turks conquered large areas of Anatolia in the decade after the Battle of Manzikert (1071), marking the start of the slow transition from predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking. In the following century, the Crusades passed through, allowing the Byzantines to reassert control in western Anatolia, while the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm (1077–1308) held the east. Then in the 13-century, the Mongols swept through Central Asia and the Middle East, pushing even more Turkish tribes before them into Anatolia. Moreover, the Sultanate of Rûm was crushed by the Mongols at the Battle of Köse Dağ (June 1243), became their vassal, and began to fracture. The new and overriding characteristic of Anatolia was extreme political fragmentation, with many petty princes called Ghazis, usually Turkish by race, and increasingly independent of both Mongol and Seljuq control. One of these Ghazis was Osman I (d. 1323), seen later as founder of the Ottoman Turkish Empire (1299–1922). It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the lack of surviving sources from this period. Osman ruled over a small territory around the city of Söğüt in the north-western Anatolia. He showed leadership and enterprise, and gathered men to him who lived in a style in keeping with their Turkish origins, as fierce nomads of the steppes. Riding out to war was their everyday activity. Söğüt's location on a curious borderland of cultures, half-Christian, half-Islamic, must also have been provoking; the Ottomans would prove a people quick to adopt new skills and ideas. Moreover, hemmed in to the east by the more powerful Ghazis, ''Osman and his immediate successors concentrated all their attacks to the west, taking advantage of the decay of the Byzantine frontier defences. From the very start, Islam played a central role in Ottoman self-identity. Many of Osman's followers were new to the faith, but once galvanized they moved with the zeal of a new convert. The struggle with Byzantium was essentially a religious one, and this provided an ideal which attracted Turkish warriors regardless of tribal group, as well as Seljuk scholars from the east to act as administrators. Whatever its ultimate source, their staggering record of conquest rivals that of Arab and Mongol. They were in the end to reassemble under one ruler the territory of the old Eastern Roman empire and more. In the century after the death of Osman, Ottoman rule almost continuously grew in size and extent. Progress was at first slow. The Ottoman horsemen lack the siege-craft to take fortified Byzantine cities, and instead plundered the countryside, flooding their victims with refugees, and effectively strangling them into submission. The Byzantine Emperor responded by marching out with his army, but suffered a shattering defeat at the Battle of Bapheus (1302), revealing that the weakened empire was powerless to stem the Turkish advance. In 1326, the Ottomans captured the important Byzantine stronghold of Bursa, just across the Hellespont from Constantinople, and made it their capital; it was a deliberate choice, and they made no secret of their desire to take Constantinople. Nicaea and Nicomedia fell by 1337, and soon all that remained of Byzantine Anatolia was a few isolated cities that the Turks hadn't bothered to conquer year. Incredibly, the Byzantines, rather than uniting against the obvious threat, soon fell to squabbling. John VI Kantakouzenos (d. 1383), an aspiring claimant for the throne, offered the Ottoman Sultan his first foothold in Europe at Gallipoli, in exchange for his support overthrowing of the emperor. From there, Turkish troops extended northward into Thrace, culminating with the capture in 1362 of Adrianople (modern-day Edirne), the second city of the Byzantine Empire and moved their capital into Europe. At last realising the danger, Byzantine Emperors travelled to Europe again and again to beg for assistance, but the West had its own problems, with France and England fighting the Hundred Years' War, and the rest too disunited to offer any real help. Only Bulgaria and Serbia, themselves directly threatened by the rising Turkish tide, were willing to join an anti-Ottoman alliance. At the Battle of Maritsa River (September 1371), a 35,000 strong allied army attempted to retake Adrianople, while the bulk of the Ottoman forces were campaigning in eastern Anatolia. However, with no enemy forces in the area, they failed to scout ahead. A small Ottoman army, perhaps less than a thousand riders, conducted a night raid on the Christian camp, killing thousands in their sleep, and even more who drowned in the river trying to flee. In the aftermath, the Ottomans faced little resistance from an internally divided Bulgaria. The Serbs bravely continued to resist, but on the ''field of blackbirds in the terrible Battle of Kosovo (June 1389), Serbian power was broken as well. By 1393, the Ottomans had effectively taking complete control of the Balkans. These conquests provided both the need and the opportunity for an Ottoman standing army: the Janissary slave-soldiers. The state claimed one-fifth of all slaves taken in war, and it was from this pool of manpower that the Sultans constructed the first Janissary corps as a personal army loyal only to them. In subsequent generations, they were gathered through the devşirme system, a human tax imposed on the conquered Christians, in the form of young boys, who were converted to Islam, subjected to strict discipline, and trained in the arts of war. This professional army marked an important stage in the evolution of Ottoman Empire away from a nomadic people of natural cavalrymen, as well as giving them a significant edge in a Europe without standing armies until the mid-17th-century. The Janissaries were not slaves in the strictest sense, and were paid salaries and pensions upon retirement. In time, they would form their own distinctive social class within the ruling elite of the empire. Only now, with Latin Christian Hungary directly threatened, did the rest of Europe awake at last to the danger. In 1394, Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a new Crusade against the Turks, though the Great Papal Schism of 1378 meant the days when popes had such authority were long past. Nevertheless, many knights across Europe answered the call, aided by a long break in the Hundred Years' War. The predominantly French-Hungarian Crusader army of perhaps 16,000 men converged on the strategically important fortress-city of Nicopolis on the Danube. Though nominally led by Hungarian King Sigismund, the headstrong French knights refused to follow his battle-plan, resulting in a crushing defeat at the Battle of Nicopolis (September 1396). By this time, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced a few square miles outside the city of Constantinople itself, completely surrounded in an Ottoman sea. In 1394, Sultan Bayezid I (1389-1402) began to besiege the great city, and it seemed the empire would expire in humiliation and decay. But in 1402, the Byzantines were granted a sudden reprieve. In the late-14th-century, Persia and Central Asia were in turmoil, after the disintegration of the Mongol Ilkhanate Khanate in 1335, and a protracted dynastic dispute in the Chagatai Khanate from 1338. Many warlords vied for power, among whom the gratest of them gave the world one last flash of the old Mongol terror. This was Timur, '''also known in the west as Tamerlane ("Timur the Lame"), from a leg-wound sustained in his youth. Timur aspired to rival Genghis Khan, and, like his hero, spent more than half of his life rising to a position of power over local rivals. He was almost fifty in 1383, when he began an astonishing two decades of far-flung conquest. Timur began his conquest of Persia with the capture of Herāt, a city on the border of Afghanistan and Persian, which, under his own descendants, became the capital of the Timurid Khanate (1383-1500). Most of Persia was his by 1386, and the Caucasuses three years later. Timur's conquests were based on terror. Any city that resisted or later revolted was reduced to rubble and its citizens massacred or enslaved, sparing only the artistic and educated. He also developed an effective new form of memento; the skulls of the dead, firmly cemented together, form the masonry for grisly towers, to stand as cautionary tales. Yet Timur was as much a Muslim Turk by blood as a Mongol, and almost complete extinguished Nestorian Christianity in his domains; hardly in the Mongol tradition. Meanwhile, taking the Caucasus brought Timur's domain to the border of the Mongol Golden Horde of Russia; though Toktamysh, its Khan, had once sought refuge in Timur's court, conflict was inevitable. The power of Tokhtamysh was finally broken at the Battle of the Terek River (April 1395), and Sarai Batu was destroyed as were Italian trading colonies on the Black Sea. Next, Timur turned east and crossed the Indus River into India in 1398, having heard of the weakness of the Delhi Sultanate. Though faced wth war-elephants for the first time, the Sultan's army was easily defeated at Panipat in December, and Delhi itself was sacked, destroyed, and left in ruins; in conquering Delhi, Timur arguably surpassing Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. However, Timur had no intention of ruling India, and withdrew carrying home an immense quantity of spoils on 120 elephants. By the end of 1399, the conqueror, now in his mid-sixties, was back in the west, preparing for a war with the Ottoman Turks; his stated aim was the restoration of the Seljuqs, who had been granted authority over Anatolia by Mongol conquerors. But first Timur secured his south-western border, by making war on the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt; invading Syria, and sacking Damascus, Aleppo, and Baghdad. Finally in 1402, he invaded the Ottoman Anatolia, prompting the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid to break-off his siege of Constantinople, prolonging the life of Byzantium for a little while. Bayezid was advised by his generals to take up a defensive position, but instead marched eastward to Sivas, hoping to force Timur to fight in the dense forests unsuitable for horse-archers, or to withdraw competely. However, the Ottomans found no traces of the Timur, who had secretly marched southwest, and then up behind the Ottoman rear to the city of Ankara. With no choice but to fight, the Ottoman army was shattered at the Battle of Ankara (July 1402), and Sultan Bayezid himself was captured; he died within a year still in Timur's care. Again illustrating his interest in Genghis' family legacy, Timur died of an illness in 1405, while planning a campaign to conquer Ming China, which had driven-out the Mongols in 1368. After his death, the Timurid Empire was divided among his sons and grandson, and, though squabbling incessantly, the family held onto most of its territory until 1510, when eastern Persia fell to the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1736). It took the Ottoman Empire years to recover from the Battle of Ankara. Bayezid’s four sons fought a decade long civil war for the right to rule the entire empire, which was won by the youngest, Mehmed I (1413-21). Mehmed and his son Murad II (1421–51) then had to devote most of their reigns to reasserting control over Anatolia and the Balkans, against Turkish warlords and break-away vassal princes. In 1444, Murad retired to a life of religious contemplation, having voluntarily passed the throne to his 12-year-old son Mehmed II, who had already shown the promise that was to distinguish his long reign. However, Pope Eugenius IV sought to use this opportunity to organise a new Crusade to drive the Ottomans from Europe. Understanding that he was too young and inexperienced, Mehmet recalled his father to the throne to lead the army against this new Christian coalition. Despite some initial success, the Hungarian-Polish Crusader army was virtually annihilated at the Battle of Varna (November 1444). Varna is often considered the last Crusade, and sealed the fate of the Balkans for centuries. The Ottomans had fully regained their momentum when now 19-year-old '''Mehmed the Conqueror (1451-81) return to the throne. Remembering his previous reign, Europe and Byzantium breathed a sigh of relief, and ambassador to Mehmed's court were reassured by his friendly overtures. But Mehmed's mild words were not matched by actions. He began his reign by having his infant brother assassinated. It was, in his mind, the only way to remove a potential threat to his throne, and prevent the kind of civil war that had followed the reign of Bayezid. He would later famously remark, "whichever of my sons inherits the sultan's throne, it behooves him to kill his brothers in the interest of the world order". It should have been a clue to his character, but went unheeded by most of Byzantium and Europe. Mehmed's singular goal was to take the Byzantine capital. His grandfather had built the Anadolu Hisarı fortress, a few miles north of Constantinople on the Asian side of the Hellespont. By early 1452, construction had begun on a second fortress, the Rumeli hisarı, on the European side. This pair of fortresses ensured complete control of sea traffic through the Hellespont. A stranglehold was being applied to Constantinople. In the Byzantine capital, Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos (1449-53) swiftly understood Mehmed's true intentions, and turned to Western Europe for help, but as always the message was the same; convert to Catholicism first. But the bitterness of the Fourth Crusade, so quickly forgotten by the West, endured in the Byzantine memory. Even in the face of annihilation, the typical Byzantine response was, "Better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's mitre." Constantine had lived through at least one siege before, having barely escaped the siege of Hexamilion with his life, the last Byzantine stronghold outside the capital to fall to the Turks in 1446. Courageous and charismatic, he knew there was little room for hope, but he reigned with a quiet dignity that didn't involve surrender. If the great city must fall, then it would go down fighting in honourable Roman fashion. In early April 1453, Mehmed II initiated the siege and naval blockade of Constantinople, with an army of more than 100,000 men and a fleet of 126 ships. With the age of artillery now well under way, he also brought 69 cannons, including one that was more than twice as large as any yet built. It had been designed and built for the Ottomans by a Hungarian specialist called Orban, who had first offered his services to the Byzantines, but the impoverished emperor had no funds to hire him. The cannon was a behemoth: 27 feet-long; weighing 19-tons; requiring 60 oxen and 200 men to manoeuvre into firing position; needing 3-hours to reload; and capable of propelling a 600 lbs ball over a mile. Meanwhile, Emperor Constantine had just 7,000 soldiers, 700 Genoese mercenaries, and some 30,000 civilians pressed into service, but again he refused to surrender, instead placing his faith in the mighty Theodosian Walls. On 6 April, Mehmed opened fire. The city-walls were subjected to a bombardment unprecedented in the history of siege-warfare, and the Ottomans breached sections of the wall by the end of the first day. However, repeated assaults were repulsed, and each night the defenders would ventured out to turn the rubble into makeshift defences. Frustrated with his lack of progress, Mehmed turned to the lower sea wall within the imperial harbour, itself protected from enemy ships by a great chain across the harbour mouth. But the young Sultan had an answer to that. In a stunning display of Turkish planning and organisation, 70 ships were dragged on wheeled carriages over a 200-foot hill and into the harbour. On Sunday morning 29 April, Emperor Constantine awoke to the astonishing sight of Ottoman ships in the imperial harbour, and the knowledge that he now had even more miles of wall to defend. The navy and cannons were a failure. Remarkably, the Byzantines managed to hold-out for almost a month. Mehmet did better with orthodox methods, driving his soldiers forward ruthlessly, cutting them down if they flinched from the assault. In the Turkish camp, Mehmed prepared his troops for an all-out assault. Not bothering to keep his plans a secret, he announced that Monday would be a day of rest and prayer, and Tuesday 29 May 1453 would be the final push. That Monday, the last in Byzantine history, the exhausted defenders and civilians, Orthodox and Roman Catholics alike, gathered in the Hagia Sophia for a solemn ceremony, and for one brief moment Christendom was restored. The Ottoman offensive began in successive waves just after midnight. Emperor Constantine seemed to be everywhere at once, shoring up the line wherever it wavered. Then, when all was lost, he plunged into where the fighting was thickest, and was lost to history. By dawn, every bell in the city rang-out the alarm; the Turks were in the city. Mehmed gave his troops free rein for three days in the conquered city. The carnage was terrible; thousands were murdered, raped, or enslaved. Only Hagia Sophia was ordered to be spared; the cathedral, for many centuries the most magnificent in Christendom, was to begin its new life as an Islamic mosque. Constantinople thus became once again the heart of a great empire; the new capital of the Ottoman Empire, with a new name, Istanbul. Externally, the conquest made Mehmed II the most esteemed ruler in the Muslim world, even if the lands of the old Caliphate still remained in the hands of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, Timur’s successors in Persia, and others. Domestically, his first objective was to restore Istanbul as the political, economic, and social centre of the eastern Mediterranean. Rebuilding commenced almost immediately, including: the repair of the great city walls; the addition of the Yedikule Fortress upon the old triumphal Golden Gate built by Emperor Theodosius II; the conversion of the Hagia Sophia; a new mosque complex, the Fatih Mosque ("Mosque of the Conqueror"), with its attached hospital, university, and public baths; and the Topkapı Place, the main residence and administrative headquarters of the Ottoman Sultans for almost 500 year. The population of the city had been much reduced after decades of fear and uncertainty, so Mehmed encouraged its former inhabitants to return, while elements of all the conquered peoples of the empire were brought to the city. Special attention was paid to restoring Istanbul’s industry and trade, with substantial tax concessions made to attract merchants, artisans, and other skilled workers. Jews were attracted from all over Europe, where they were increasingly being persecuted; after their expulsion from Spain in 1492, many would make their way to Istanbul. Under Ottoman rule the major religious groups were allowed to establish their own self-governing communities, called Millets, each retaining its own religious laws, traditions, and language under the general protection of the Sultan; a Greek Orthodox archbishop was restored in the former Constantinople within a year. The great city recovered rapidly. Within fifty years, it was once again a thriving imperial capital, and the largest city in Europe; by 1600, it had a population of 700,000. Mehmed also devoted much time to expanding his dominions in Europe and Asia. He eliminated the last vassal princes who might have disputed his claims to be legitimate successor to the Byzantine and Seljuq dynasties. In addition, he extended Ottoman rule far beyond the territories inherited from his father: Serbia was officially annexed in 1455; the Peloponnese conquered in 1460; Italian commercial colonies that had survived along the Black Sea fell in 1461; the Bulgarian rump-state of Vlad (the Impaler) III Dracula (d. 1476) fell in 1462; and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1463. When Venice refused to surrender its important ports along the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, Mehmed inaugurated the Ottoman-Venetian war (1463–79), which ended in Ottoman victory, and helped the rapid expansion of the Ottoman navy. Venice agreed to pay a regular annual tribute in return for restoration of its commercial privileges. Also in 1479, Albanian resistance was finally broken, after holding-out for more than 30-years under national hero Skanderbeg (d. 1468). In the process, a large number of Turks settled in Albania, forming the nucleus of a Muslim community that has remained to the present day. In the east, Mehmed established Ottoman rule over all of Anatolia. Meanwhile, the possession of Constantinople stimulated in the Ottomans a desire to re-create the Byzantine Empire, a goal that would ultimately be achieved under Suleiman the Magnificent (d. 1566). The fall of Constantinople did not quite bring the Byzantine story to an end. Fleeing the wreckage of their homeland, many Byzantine scholars migrated to Western Europe, bring with them the jewels of Greek and Roman learning that had been lost to the Dark Ages in the West. There they found new homes amid people ready to fall in love with these forgotten classics. The result was the Renaissance where Western Europe was reintroduced to its own roots; 40,000 of the 55,000 surviving texts were sourced from Constantinople. Eastern Europe of course had never really forgotten. Russia especially with its Byzantine alphabet and Orthodox faith saw itself as the cultural heir of Constantinople, sometimes even referring to Moscow as the "Third Rome". Ivan the Great (d. 1505) married a niece of the last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI, and his grandson, Ivan the Terrible (d. 1584), was the first Russian ruler to style himself Tsar, derived from Caesar. Russian icon painting began by entirely adopting and imitating Byzantine art, although its style later developed distinct characteristics. But perhaps the true cultural inheritors of the long Byzantine (Roman) tradition was Ottoman Turkish Empire itself. Many historians argue that the Ottomans took over the machinery of the Byzantine state, creating a fusion of Eastern Roman and Turkish Islamic traditions. Indeed, Suleiman the Magnificent would effectively recreate the Byzantine Empire of Justinian the Great, ruling over 25 million people in a far more well-administered state than any in Western Europe at the time. A great part of the legacy of Byzantium was already secured to the future long before the fall of Constantinople. It lay in the rooting of Orthodox Christianity among the Russians and other Slav peoples. Slav cultures were potentially open to other influences, for Byzantium was not its only neighbour, but Eastern Orthodoxy was in the end the deepest single influence upon it. In the 19th and 20th century, Orthodoxy would be pressed into service by the forces of national independence from Ottoman rule. Today the Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian communion in the world, with at least 200 million adherents. End of Paganism in Europe (1387) By the early-13th-century, Baltic tribes living to the north-east of Poland were the last pagans of Europe. With the Teutonic Knights conquering and forcibly converting the Latvians and old Prussians (modern-day Kaliningrad), tribal chieftains of Lithuania united under Mindaugas (d. 1263) and successfully resisted. The Lithuanian king personally converted to Catholicism in a bid to defuse the threat, but was ultimately assassinated by pagan opposition. Lithuania thus remained pagan, and, despite regular clashes with the Teutonic Knights, rapidly extended its territory to the south and east. By the long-reign of Jogaila (1377-1434), his realm stretched through modern-day Belarus and south into the former Russian principality of Kiev, almost to the Black Sea. Jogaila's decision in 1386 was a watershed in Eastern European history; he married Jadwiga, crown princess of Poland, to forge a Lithuanian-Polish alliance that would last 400 years, and accepted Catholicism like the Poles, making it the last European country to convert. The personal union of the crowns benefited both parties, each gaining a partner in skirmishes against the Teutonic Knights to the north and Mongols to the east. The strength of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was demonstrated in a dramatic clash with the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald (July 1410). The German knights fought in the old style, clad in heavy armour and riding powerful chargers, but proved vulnerable to their more agile opponents, fighting closer to the Mongol style; indeed there were at least 3,000 mercenaries from the Golden Horde. This battle broke the prestige of the Teutonic Knights. Warfare rumbled on intermittently for another half century, until old Prussia was finally yielded to Poland in 1466, ushering in a century-long golden age of power and prosperity for the Commonwealth, during which it evolved into a parliamentary monarchy. The period ended in 1573 with a succession crisis where there was no heir apparent to the throne. In an exercise of democracy unusual for the time, it was decided that the new king shall be elected by parliament; in the absence of a serious Polish contender, a foreign candidate would be considered. From the very beginning, the experiment proved disastrous. For each royal election, foreign powers promoted their candidates by bargaining and bribing voters. Commonwealth power waned under a succession of 11 kings, only four of them native Poles. Early Renaissance (1350-1490) Despite the crises, the 14th-century was also an efflorescent period of artistic, cultural and intellectual revival, that coincided with the rediscovery of Greco-Roman culture. The Renaissance (1350-1620) began in the city-states of Italy and gradually spreading throughout Europe, with its influence felt in philosophy, painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, music, politics, science, geography, religion, and many other areas of creative inquiry. The concept of the Renaissance may be vivid in the mind's eye, in painting and sculptures of profound and moving realism, but the word is a slippery customer. Historians first use it in the mid-19th-century implying a return back into the light of Europe's former glory, after losing its way during the darkness of the medieval centuries. The Renaissance is and was a useful myth, if we keep in mind that there are no clear lines in history; no radical break from the medieval past. The medieval centuries are not merely the gap between classical and modern civilization, but have a vivid cultural identity of their own; the 12th and 13th in particular were unmistakably civilized. Classical learning had never been entirely absent from medieval society, and the translation movement from Islamic sources began centuries earlier in the 11th-century; Islamic influence on Western civilisation and Renaissance art has often been overlooked. in the arts, stylistic hints of the coming Renaissance can be seen well before 1300. Even before the Renaissance, Europe was beginning to break through the barrier that restricted creativity to Latin, with Dante's The Divine Comedy ''(1320) widely considered the preeminent work of vernacular Italian literature. Nevertheless, people at the time believed that they were living in an period that was special. As Lorenzo Valla (d. 1457) wrote, “''I do not know why the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture had been in so long and so deep a decline and almost died out together with literature itself; nor why they have come to be aroused, awoken, and come to life again in this age; nor why there is now such a rich harvest both of good artists and good writers.” In retrospect it is not difficult to understand why the Italian city-states were the cradle of the Renaissance. A key feature of Italy in the Middle Ages was political fragmentation. It led to virtually never ending instability, but the upside was a vibrant political, commercial, and cultural competitiveness. Despite their turbulent history, the people of the peninsula had always felt a deep sense of a shared community, above all from the heritage of Ancient Rome; their cities had literally been built upon its ruins. Moreover, northern and central Italy was among the richest regions in Europe, prospering as a hub of international trade between a Europe experiencing strong economic growth, and the long-established Mediterranean port-cities and beyond. The feudal aristocratic model that had dominated Europe did not take hold in northern Italy. Instead status was based on wealth, intelligence, and one's own hard work, dominated by the mercantile and banking elites. One compelling theory suggests that the Black Death decimated the densely populated cities, but helped concentrate wealth in the hands of the survivors of the plague, who had more surplus money to spend on luxury goods or even sponsoring artists. The Italian trade-routes were also major conduits of culture and knowledge. It can be argued that Italian society was more sophisticated, cosmopolitan, and open to foreigners and their ideas than anywhere else in Europe. Its people were prosperous, commercialised, highly numerate and literate, and independent-minded. Merchants from the Muslim world could be seen mingling at markets with the locals. Dispossessed groups often found acceptance there; Jews fleeing persecution or expulsion from other European kingdoms, and refugee Byzantine scholars fleeing the Ottoman Turkish onslaught. Of the various states on the peninsula, there were five main powers in the late-14th-century; Rome, Venice, Milan, Naples, and Florence. Rome was the centre of a vast ecclesiastical network which spread throughout Christendom, as well as an major pilgrimage destination. Venice was a major commercial port and the dominant maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean after their decisive victory over Genoa in the Battle of Chioggia (1380). Milan was something of a hybrid city; an inland port on the Po River; a major commercial centre as the gateway between Italy and the rest of Europe; and a territorial power that dominated the Po valley. Naples was the cultural centre of easily the biggest state on the peninsula, stretching from Sicily to the border of the Papal State, which prospered despite the rule of a series of foreign dynasties; the Normans, imperial Germany, Anjou, Aragon, and so on. Florence was another hybrid city: it first rose to economic prominence as a centre of high quality textile production, importing wool from northern Europe, together with dyes from the East; and then became a centre of the banking industry, with the gold Florin becoming the main currency of international trade. While the spirit of the Italian Renaissance ultimately took many forms, the earliest expression was the conscious revival of studying classical Greek and Roman literature and science by secular scholars. The movement became known as Humanism, implying an admiration of the finest achievements of the human race. Unlike clerical scholars who focused almost exclusively on classical works of natural science, philosophy and mathematics, Humanists were more interested in works of rhetoric, oratory, grammar, history, poetry, and moral philosophy. Of the earliest Humanists, Francesco Petrarch (d. 1374) has been commonly dubbed the "Father of Humanism". Petrarch believed that true eloquence and ethical wisdom had been lost during the Middle Ages, and could only be found by looking to the writings of the ancients. In 1345, he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously known to have existed, whose writing style became the model for modern Italian prose. He convert many admirers to his cause, among the most influential being Giovanni Boccaccio (d. 1375). Boccaccio devoted himself to tracking down forgotten classical manuscripts, visiting monastic libraries, and clambering among ruins to note the inscriptions. The migration waves of Byzantine scholars in the period between the Crusader sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 provided Humanism with a major boost. They brought with them Greek manuscripts that had been lost in the West, as well as great familiarity with classical works and languages. From the beginning, Humanist turned to emulated the classics in their own imaginative literature and poetry in Latin and Italian vernacular. Petrarch's sonnets became a model for lyrical poetry; he's also known as the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages". There are many parallels between Boccaccio's The Decameron ''(c. 1353) and the more famous ''Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400). Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the early modern period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli revived the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers and applied them in critiques of contemporary government. Many of the foremost philosophers and theologians of the Protestant Reformation were followers of the Humanist method; Erasmus, Zwingli, Thomas More, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. The idea of Renaissance is especially linked to innovation in art, and Florence is often named as the birthplace of the Renaissance art. A spirit of competition developed between the wealthy merchants, who often competed with each other to see who could build the grandest mansions in the city or villas in the country, and commission the finest works of art. The Medici family, which controlled the city throughout much of the Renaissance, played a large part in the development of the arts. Giovanni de Medici (d. 1429) was the first of the family to dominate the city. When he died, he left behind an unprecedented fortune, a legacy of patroning the arts, and a son, Cosimo de Medici (d. 1464), who was educated in the principles of humanism. A successful businessman, Cosimo built up his father's fortune, but it is still extraordinary to imagine that during his life, he spent roughly one-third of his inheritance supporting architecture, scholarly learning, and other arts. Under Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo de' Medici, Florence was undeniably the most important city-state in Italy, and the most beautiful city in all of Europe. He enjoyed the spotlight of power immensely, and was the most enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. The first important figures of what would subsequently be known as Renaissance Art '''were three Florentine friends who visited Rome together around 1402; Filippo Brunelleschi, an architect; Donatello, a sculptor; and Masaccio, a painter. While Humanists visited the Holy City to find and copy ancient manuscripts, these friends immersed themselves in the study of the Roman ruins, sculptures, and paintings. They were recognized in their own time as founders of a new direction in art. The masters of classic Greece and Rome were finally being challenged. '''Brunelleschi (d. 1446) is considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture. The creative blend of his classical studies and his own imagination was first seen in the Ospedale degli Innocenti (a home for orphan children) commissioned by the Silk Guild, to which he belonged. Although the ingredients of the façade are the familiar ones of Roman architecture, there is an entirely new feeling in the balance between them, the proportions, the sense of slender elegance. This new style can be seen in its purest form in the Pazzi Chapel, where the mood of perfect balance extends also to the interior. Every surface, from floor to dome, is planned in an interacting display of curves and colour. He is most famous for designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral which still dominates the Florentine skyline, a feat of engineering that had not been accomplished since antiquity. In terms of sculpture, the acknowledged master of the early Renaissance was Donatello (d. 1466). In 1406 the powerful craft and trade guilds of Florence were order to provide statues for the outer wall of the Orsanmichele, a combined merchant guildhall and chapel. In his mid-twenties, Donatello was commissioned by different guilds for free-standing marble figures of St Mark and St George. Both works show a decisive move away from the Gothic style and toward a more purely classical style. Rapidly maturing in his art, Donatello soon began to develop a style all his own, with figures much more dramatic and emotional. His most famous statue, the astonishing bronze David to stand in a courtyard of the Medici palace, was the first life-size nude sculpture since classical times. It reintroduced one of the great themes of Greek sculpture in a burst of glorious confidence, and with a new mood of wit and playfulness. In 1443, Donatello was called to the city of Padua near Venice by the family of the famous mercenary Erasmo da Narni, who had recently died. In 1450, he completed a massive bronze composition called Gattamelata, showing the uncompromising soldier of fortune riding a horse in full battle dress. This work became the prototype for every equestrian monuments through the streets of modern Europe. The founder of Renaissance painting was Tommaso Guidi (d. 1428), better known as Masaccio ("Messy Tom") because of his disheveled appearance. Masaccio clearly admires the work of the earlier Giotto (d. 1337), and strove to portray the human form realistically. Masaccio’s frescoes for the chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine (1428) had a new freedom in the expression of emotion and a sense of depth that were among the great turning points of the Renaissance. The bodies of the naked Adam and Eve, driven from Paradise, are almost distorted in the intensity of their shame. The sense of depth achieved by Masaccio is partly thanks to the new Renaissance interest in the scientific theory of linear perspective, with techniques such as vanishing point. Building on the accomplishments of his predecessors, Sandro Botticelli (d. 1510) emerges as arguably the outstanding painter of the early Renaissance. One of a circle of artists and scholars under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, Botticelli's characteristic style is seen in one of the most widely recognised paintings of the Italian Renaissance. The Birth of Venus (c.1482) is a traditional scene from Greek mythology; the goddess is born from the sea and floats ashore in a scallop shell. But in both the very large size and prominence of a nude female, it is virtually unprecedented in Western art since antiquity. In the 15th-century, the Renaissance spread rapidly from its birthplace in Florence to the rest of Italy and soon beyond the Alps to the rest of Europe. The Netherlands and Belgium were a particularly early adherent of the so-called Northern Renaissance. Cities such as Ghent, Ypres, Bruges, Antwerp, and Brussels had strong trade links with northern Italy, and a similar mercantile culture based on high-quality textile production. The 1430s was an extraordinary decade for art in this small northern region. Jan van Eyck (d. 1441) began his career painting a vast new paneled altarpiece for Ghent Cathedral. This was a familiar late Gothic work, but Van Eyck, painting with a new certainty of design and execution, made each panel is a powerful work in its own right, while each collaborates with its immediate neighbours in a complex landscape; fascinating in its naturalism and realism if viewed closely, and striking when seen from more distance. The faces in the panels are so real that they could be portraits, and indeed his most famous work is a portrait of an Italian merchant and his wife, known as The Arnolfini Marriage. Van Eyck significantly developed the use of oil paint as a medium, and his techniques were quickly adopted and refined by his contemporaries Robert Campin (d. 1444) and Rogier van der Weyden (d. 1464). This first generation of Flemish-Dutch artists sought to depict people in a way that made them look more human, with a greater complexity of emotions than had been previously seen. For a century after this heyday, the Low Countries became the cultural centre of northern Europe. Van Eyck, Campin, and van der Weyden similarly influenced the French artist Jean Fouquet (d. 1481) and the German Martin Schongauer (d. 1491). Building upon the foundation laid by their predecessors, the cultural movement reached its apex in the High Renaissance (1490-1529). The term Renaissance Man has come to mean someone with exceptional skills in a wide range of fields. The description applied to many people during the Renaissance, but there are three outstanding candidates for the title; Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Category:Historical Periods